Twitch Sues Hijacker… Bots?

Twitch has filed a lawsuit against troll streamers — even though they have no idea who they are.

The popular livestream website has had a tough time getting troll streamers under control. Recently, trolls hijacked a channel and live streamed porn, Game of Thrones episodes and other copyrighted material, violent videos and video from the Christchurch mass shooting. As a result, Twitch is now suing… someone?

According to Bloomberg, Twitch said that if it learns the identities of the anonymous streamers — named in the lawsuit as “John and Jane Does 1-100” — it will ask the court to prohibit them from using the platform and order them to pay restitution and damages. According to a copy of the lawsuit posted by Gizmodo, “Doe 1 is a person or entity responsible in whole or in part for the wrongful conduct alleged herein who has operated an account on the Twitch Services under a pseudonym.” John Does “2-to-100 are persons or entities responsible in whole or in part for the wrongdoing alleged herein.”

Okay!

This, after Twitch said it does work to remove these sorts of posts and ban the accounts of the users who post them. The videos quickly reappear, however, apparently posted by bots. Meanwhile other bots work to drive users to the TOS-violating content.

The situation is so bad that Twitch put a two-day ban on new users, preventing them from streaming, after an attack occurring on May 25. The site has also been taking additional security steps to stop problem users from using old accounts that they purchase from others.

Here’s the thing… Is Twitch attempting to sue bots? Or maybe, it’s the bot masters they are after? Because if the goal here is to shut down bot-initiated activity, well, a ban on new creators with simultaneous verification of existing users is probably the only way to get this in check quickly.

Also, every time stories like this happen, I really am left wondering: Who does this? Who literally has this much free time to spend hassling people — especially the young users that seem to flock to Twitch — and companies in this manner? Further, why-oh-why do people continue to lump erotic media into the same “problematic” category as things like body cam recordings of mass murder?

That is a question we are not likely to get the answer to any time soon.

Over the weekend we became aware of a number of accounts targeting the "Artifact" game directory to share content that grossly violates our terms of service. Our investigations uncovered that the majority of accounts that shared and viewed the content were automated.

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) May 28, 2019

Photo by Jamie McInall via Pexels.